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With second seasons of The Night Manager and Red Eye already heating up U.K. telly, there’s still so much more to come in 2026. Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat, and Chris Chibnall all have new shows lined up this year. There are some big adaptations on the way, too, including a Kit Harington-led version of A Tale of Two Cities.
Meanwhile, Richard Gadd will follow up his smash hit awards-grabber Baby Reindeer with a new show that is bound to be absolutely devastating, and Lisa McGee will follow up Derry Girls with her new Netflix series, How to Get to Heaven From Belfast.
The year also has some big returning shows in store! Line of Duty and Unforgotten are both coming back to the small screen with their seventh series.
Let’s take a look at some of the big shows heading our way in 2026…
Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials
January 15 on Netflix
We love a new Agatha Christie adaptation, and this one has a stacked cast (Mia McKenna-Bruce, Helena Bonham Carter, Martin Freeman, and more!) and a classic 1929 mystery to unravel, courtesy of Broadchurch creator Chris Chibnall. This story follows a group of young, well-off Londoners who stumble into a strange puzzle involving time, coded messages, and a shadowy organization known as “Seven Dials,” after a seemingly harmless prank goes wrong.
How to Get to Heaven From Belfast
February on Netflix
Originally envisioned as a Channel 4 series, How to Get to Heaven From Belfast has now moved to Netflix due to rising costs. It’s the new show from Derry Girls creator Lisa McGee, and it follows three childhood friends from Belfast – Saoirse, Robyn and Dara – who are now in their late thirties and living very different lives when they receive word that a fourth member of their school-friend group has died. Roísín Gallagher, Sinéad Keenan and Caoilfhionn Dunne lead the cast.
Young Sherlock
March 4 on Prime Video
Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes is back, but he is definitely looking a bit younger than Robert Downey Jr. here as the director plans to explore the famous detective’s early years in Oxford for this Prime Video series, which adapts Andrew Lane’s Young Sherlock Holmes books. Hero Fiennes Tiffin (nephew of Ralph and young Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince) stars as the titular deerstalker-botherer.
Betrayal
TBD on ITV
From the mind of playwright David Eldridge, slick new spy show Betrayal will take us into the complex new reality of MI5, as veteran agent John Hughes (Endeavour’s Shaun Evans) navigates an evolving security landscape and a progressive workplace. When an assassination links him to a conspiracy, Hughes will have to figure out how to protect not only his marriage and career, but also Britain itself.
Lord of the Flies
TBD on BBC
The Beeb has never attempted a TV adaptation of William Golding’s famous novel… until now! With Adolescence writer Jack Thorne behind the upcoming series, we could be in for a very special version of the classic book this year. If you’re not familiar with the story Golding wrote in 1954, it focuses on a group of schoolboys who are stranded on a tropical island. With no adults to tell them what to do, the boys soon try to organize. But hope is a fragile thing…
The Lady
TBD on ITV
The gang behind The Crown have a new royal drama series for you in 2026! This one comes with its own true-life crime twist, as The Lady follows Sarah Ferguson’s royal dresser Jane Andrews (Mia McKenna-Bruce), who falls from grace after being convicted of murdering her stockbroker boyfriend Thomas Cressman. Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones) and Ed Speelers (Star Trek: Picard) co-star.
Maya
TBD on Channel 4
In the midst of filming HBO’s hit series The Last of Us, Bella Ramsey has also hopped onto Channel 4’s Maya, a psychological thriller about a mum (Breeders star Daisy Haggard, also on co-writing duties) and daughter who get put in a witness protection program in a remote Scottish village. So, are they then safe from the danger that pursues them and left to their own devices? Are they heck! Not with Tobias “Black Jack Randall” Menzies after them.
Secret Service
TBD on ITVX
This 5-episode ITVX series stars Gemma Arterton as an MI6 officer who seems to have an ordinary but happy life. Still, she’s got a rather important job as the head of the Russia Desk of the Secret Intelligence Service to deal with behind the scenes, which is very much not ordinary. After she learns that a senior British politician could be a potential Russian asset, she finds herself in a political game of cat and mouse.
Out of the Dust
TBD on Netflix
From the director of Oranges and Sunshine and the writer of Cuffs comes a new Netflix streaming series that follows a woman named Rosie, who ends up on a dangerous path after she starts questioning her conservative Christian sect. Asa Butterfield, Molly Windsor, Fra Fee, Siobhan Finneran and Christopher Eccleston make up the cast of this one.
The Blame
TBD on ITV
Michelle Keegan and Douglas Booth play Emma Crane and Tom Radley in this ITV adaptation of Charlotte Langley’s debut novel. The pair are two detectives who have to investigate the murder of a teenage figure skater in a small town, while also falling in love. But when one of them becomes a suspect, things get a bit more complicated.
Line of Duty Series 7
TBD on BBC One
We knew it wouldn’t be gone forever! Martin Compston, Vicky McClure, and Adrian Dunbar are back, as is writer Jed Mercurio, for a brand-new six-episode series of the Beeb’s hit cop series. Expect a slightly different setup in series 7, as AC-12 has been disbanded and rebranded as the Inspectorate of Police Standards. The team will be taking a deeper look into a sensitive case involving a celebrated detective inspector accused of abusing his position of trust.
Legends
TBD on Netflix
Two ordinary men (Tom Burke and Steve Coogan) are sent undercover in Britain’s biggest drug networks during the early 1990s in this new show from The Gold creator Neil Forsyth. Based on a true story, the series will dramatize what happened when people who’d only gone through a basic training regime had to build new identities in the criminal underworld. These will be our titular “Legends.”
Army of Shadows
TBD on Channel 4
The 1969 war movie Army of Shadows will be reimagined this year for C4, moving the film’s (and book’s) story of a resistance cell from WWII to a near-future authoritarian Britain under American occupation. The Day of the Jackal showrunner Ronan Bennett is behind this one, and more details should arrive soon, but it already sounds very intriguing indeed.
Dear England
TBD on BBC One
This four-part BBC One and BBC iPlayer drama series is adapted from James Graham’s Olivier Award-winning stage play of the same name. It stars Joseph Fiennes, who is reprising his stage role as England football manager Gareth Southgate, and features a cast that includes Jodie Whittaker and Jason Watkins. The show will chronicle Southgate’s tenure as the team’s manager and draw on the play’s exploration of leadership, national identity, and, of course, footie.
Number 10
TBD on Channel 4
Rafe Spall, Jenna Coleman, and Katherine Kelly lead the cast of Steven Moffat’s upcoming comedy drama, which explores life at Britain’s most famous address. Spall (Trying) will play the Prime Minister, Coleman (The Serpent) will be the Deputy Chief of Staff, and Kelly (Mr Bates vs The Post Office) will be the Chief of Staff. It’s a fictional government at Number 10, but they will be dealing with some all-too-familiar problems.
Kill Jackie
TBD on Prime Video
Adapted from the Nick Harkaway novel The Price You Pay, this forthcoming series has gender-swapped its main character for the show. It will follow Jackie Price (Catherine Zeta-Jones), a wealthy art dealer who becomes the target of a hitman squad called The Seven Demons. Filming has been taking place in Bilbao, Lisbon, London and Swansea, but the show is still eyeing a 2026 release.
Unforgotten Series 7
TBD on ITVX
Details on the seventh series of Unforgotten are being kept under wraps for now, but we can expect Sanjeev Bhaskar (DI Sunny Khan) and Sinéad Keenan (DCI Jess James) to be heading into a new cold case, following the success and strong ratings of series six.
Tip Toe
TBD on Channel 4
Fellow Doctor Who showrunner vets Steven Moffat and Chris Chibnall have both got new shows for us this year, but what about Russell T Davies? Yes, indeed, Davies has a new drama called Tip Toe on the way, starring David Morrissey and Alan Cumming, where the Queer as Folk creator will revisit Manchester’s Canal Street to explore the current LGBTQ+ community and the dangers they face.
A Tale of Two Cities
TBD on BBC One
There have been a few adaptations of Charles Dickens’ classic novel, but none of them starred Kit Harington, have they? Well, that’s all set to change this year as the Beeb will be rolling out four episodes to tell the tale of Charles Darnay (Harington), a French aristocrat who is tried for treason in England but manages to get acquitted thanks to a lookalike lawyer called Sydney Carton (François Civil). When he’s arrested again in France during the Revolution and sentenced to death, Carton has to make a difficult choice because he’s now very much in love with Darnay’s beautiful wife, Lucie (Mirren Mack).
Under Salt Marsh
TBD on Sky Atlantic
As a massive storm gathers offshore, Jackie Ellis (Kelly Reilly), a teacher and former detective, discovers the body of her eight-year-old student, Cefin, who appears to have drowned. The shocking find forces the town to confront memories of a case left unresolved three years earlier, the disappearance of Jackie’s niece, Nessa, which destroyed her career. Cefin’s death also draws Jackie’s former partner, Detective Eric Bull (Rafe Spall), back to lead the investigation. Convinced the two cases are linked, Jackie and Bull work together to uncover buried secrets before the approaching storm erases key evidence.
Rivals Series 2
TBD on Disney+
Rivals will return to our screens in 2026 with an expanded twelve-episode run. It continues the story of competing TV executives and social climbers in the glamorous, high-stakes world of 1980s British telly, picking up where the first season’s dramatic cliffhanger left off. Most of the main cast, including David Tennant as Lord Tony Baddingham, Alex Hassell as Rupert Campbell-Black, and Aidan Turner as Declan O’Hara, are set to return, with new additions Hayley Atwell and Rupert Everett also joining in the fun.
Half Man
TBD on BBC One
Formerly known as Lions, Richard Gadd’s follow-up to Baby Reindeer is now called Half Man. It stars Gadd and Jamie Bell (All of Us Strangers) as estranged “brothers” Ruben and Niall, and tracks what happens when Ruben shows up at Niall’s wedding after a long absence from his life. The show will untangle 40 years of their relationship, from their teenage stretch to some violent encounters in their adult lives.
War
TBD on Sky
George Kay is on a hot streak after creating Lupin and Criminal for Netflix and Hijack for Apple TV. Is this new series for Sky and HBO also worth your attention? Probably, because they’ve ordered not one but two series of it right off the bat. The first one (it’s in an anthology format) stars Dominic West and Sienna Miller, and centers on two of London’s most prestigious rival law firms as they battle over “the divorce case of the century” between tech titan Morgan Henderson (West) and his estranged wife, international film star Carla Duval (Miller).
The Other Bennet Sister
TBD on BBC One
The Other Bennet Sister is adapted from Janice Hadlow’s novel of the same name. It reimagines Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice from the perspective of Mary Bennet, the often-overlooked middle sister. The 10‑episode series, written chiefly by Sarah Quintrell, follows Mary as she leaves Longbourn for London and the Lake District in Regency England. Ella Bruccoleri stars as Mary Bennett, with Richard E. Grant and Ruth Jones as Mr and Mrs Bennett.
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